flynn089

I’d like to share a couple of videos with you that I have used recently in the courses I teach . I find these videos particularly interesting because they show such contrasting approaches to learning and in particular - for want of a better word - elearning. This first one is from the early 1950’s and is about something called a ‘ teaching machine ’ which was created by behavioural psychologist B F Skinner. As you see Skinner’s teaching machines , though not exactly iPads do look remarkably like  what we would recognise as computers. What’s also remarkable is the claims that he makes for them and the reasons why he believes they are effective are remarkably similar to those made by many producers of learning and especially language learning software today. However, despite the extremely logical reasoning that Skinner expounds I’m sure if you were invited to sit down and use one of these machines for a period of time it wouldn’t hold your interest for very long and like me you pro...